Sunday Whoever

This week’s whoever is a long-time friend of the site, with his first piece published in 2019, and he is possibly the most adventurous. When we hit Marco Etheridge with a humungous questionnaire he answered quickly while sitting in the sunshine in very exotic climes Have a look at his back catalogue, he is one of our finest writers. So this is what he had to say:

LS: What topic(s) would you not take on?I’ll write about most anything, but there are certain things I wouldn’t touch. Rich pukes winning out over working folks without any consequences would be a non-starter.

LS: What in your opinion is the best line you’ve written?
My father died when I was four years old, entombed in the intricately folded origami of a 1990 Buick Riviera crushed into a deformed rectangle. 
(Ask me tomorrow, and I will tell you a brand-new lie.)

LS: Would you write what you would consider shite for money?
The short answer is no. The longer answer is it depends. For example, I don’t write heaving-bosoms-on-the-battlement romance. But if someone offered me a great pile of lucre to write one, and I thought I could get away with subverting the genre into something fun while still coloring between the lines, sure, why not?

LS: Will you ever go Woke with your writing and use pronoun / non-descript characters and explore sensitive issues in an understanding and sensitive way?
From my point of view, Woke is one of those words that have been co-opted by the right and forged into a weapon. Remember when liberal meant open-handed or generous? Same-same. Given that, the answer gets a bit more nuanced. Exploring social issues in an understanding and sensitive way, most especially social issues for a culture that is not yours, seems to me to be an imperative, not an option. But the trappings of Woke, the ribbons and bows of forced pronouns and that sort of thing… not so much. Sure, if folks want me to refer to them as ‘they,’ I’ll do it, but it doesn’t come naturally, nor does it read naturally. My not so humble opinion is that language changes and adapts through natural need rather than enforced alteration. If you are asking me whether or not I believe in the basic understanding that White Western
Straight culture is not the only way of looking at things, then the answer is a resounding yes.

LS: Type something surprising.
“He’s broken, you know.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Maybe, but not in the same way. He’s broken on a fundamental level. Watch him around kids or dogs. They pick up on it right away. You’ll see it.”

LS: Do you see something different in a mirror that others don’t when they look at you?
Doesn’t everyone? There is that Japanese saying that each person has three faces, one to show the world, one for loved ones, and the one they show to no one. That’s the face I see in the mirror, my coyote, trickster face.

LS: The future – Bleak or hopeful?
The future? For humans or…? I’m pretty sure the cockroaches and rats will do just fine.

LS: What would you like to like as you hate that you hate it?
The word athleticism. Ditto for physicality.

LS: Records? Tapes? Or CDs?
All of the above. Jazz on vinyl, for sure. Bad quality mix tapes for long road trips across the Midwest. CDs because they’re easy and hold a lot more songs than an eight-track.
(Any of you that remember scrambling the eight-track button looking for your favorite song, I got news for you: You’re OLD!)

LS: What genre you don’t write in would you like to try?
Here we find ourselves back at bodice-busting romance. Heaving, pulsing, breathless, tingly, flushed, hell engorged even. What the hell, maybe I’ll get around to it one day.

LS: Bonus question (worth double points): What percentage of their time do Dogs spend thinking about food?
67 %. The rest of their Deep Thought (Douglas Adams? Anyone get it?) is spent as follows. Walkies: 11%. Squirrels and cats: 6%. Acting like an ass-hat to make their human laugh:12%.Western Philosophy: 4%.

LS: Who was your English teacher and did she know about your writing ambitions. 
I had a bunch of teachers as I was a migrant kid, bounced from school to school. The one standout was a he, Mister Silvers. He was pretty amazing, spit when he talked, and pushed me to write, write better, and then write some more.

LS: How long after you left school was it before you wrote anything aimed at publication?
Forty-five years, give or take.

LS: If you have an idea for a story in the middle of the supermarket, what action do you take?I stop what I’m doing, right then and there, and I write that sucker down. Here’s an example from me sitting in an open-air Thai joint in Chiang Mai, watching a young Thai woman in a Dorothy of Oz gingham dress wack open a coconut with a cleaver the size of Cleveland:
“Little orphan Annie or Oz Dorothy, Thai, with a cleaver and a wet coconut balanced on a
handrail decapitating the coco like a mongol warrior.”

LS: Do you find ideas come to you randomly or only when you sit down to write.
Never when I sit down to write. That’s just not how my brain works. By the time I’m perched in front of the keyboard, the story/character/situation has been percolating in my noggin for a week or more. I sit down to write because I’m ready to write a story. I may not know how it ends, or who dies, but I have enough grist to get the story moving.
So, the real answer is randomly, in those trance moments before sleep, when I walk through a Thai market, anywhere and everywhere. I collect characters, situations, and settings. When one slams into the other and sticks, I might have a starting point. Look, listen, taste, smell, keep the world in front of you and in focus. There is so much wonder and horror out there just waiting to be seen.

LS: Have you ever been on a writing retreat and if so how was it?
Nope. Never been invited to a writing retreat. But in all fairness, I’ve also never asked to be invited.

LS: What is the worst film version of a book that you’ve seen?
Oy! So many ways to look at this, and so many ways to answer.
Dune. Haven’t seen the newest version so…
The Time Traveller’s Wife. WTF???
But worst of all? The Hobbit. I have read The Hobbit countless times in the course of my life. News flash for Peter Jackson: There is NO Dwarf-Elf romance. Don’t need it, don’t want it, didn’t help the story one damn bit. And Radagast with his critter sled? What ground up dust from Meet the Feebles were you snorting? It’s a disgrace!!

LS: What invention has been the downfall of the 20 / 21st century?
So easy. Social media.

LS: How do you get kids to read?
Read to them. So simple.

LS: If you had no bottle opener, how would you open a beer?
Trick question, right? The world is your bottle opener. The edge of a sign, curb, bench, your drunken friend’s teeth. Plus, I am the guy who makes a weapon from whatever is lying about and fights his way out of the Zombie horde. I always have a knife, a gadget, a gizmo, something. If not, I make one. Scrap of steel sharpened on concrete. Open a beer without an opener… please!

LS: What topic(s) would you not take on?
Aside from rich pukes winning without consequence, as stated above, I’m game for anything. If it’s a ‘topic,’ then someone should think up a story about it. Might not be me, but someone.

LS: How many friends and family ask how your writing is going?
None. They know. And they’re mostly deranged, taken as a group. My wife is the only person on earth who gets to hear about stories in progress, problems, etc.

LS: Has anything you have written told you something about yourself you did not know (good or bad)?
Only if I’m writing well and truthfully. Then yes, all the time.

LS: Do you regret having a certain item published?
Nope, not a one. Even if I’ve changed enough that the piece makes me cringe, that’s the writer I was at the time. Suck it up and move on. Get better. Be more honest. Dig deeper and harder.

LS: Do you have a work that has been repeatedly rejected that still means a lot to you?
Sure. I have a story that has been rejected more times than dog puke on a hot day. It’s been rejected by Literally Stories. Rewritten four times (five?) and I still believe in it. An old man in a shitty hotel room in Oslo, Norway. He is pursued by demons he has battled for eons, or by his own inner demons. Pick your poison. A big dose of Norse mythology and a dab of noir. The good news is that this orphaned bastard was accepted not long ago. There are others of course, the handful of perpetually rejected, but I have hopes of them finding a home.

LS: What does a bird in the hand really do? (If you answer shite on your wrist, I’ll be very disappointed!)
A bird in the hand satisfies the poor fool holding it (me), a tiny crumb of consolation whilst the juggernaut of our post-modern nightmare crushes the world around me. But oh! The little bird is so lovely! Look at it there in the palm of my hand. So cute!

-Best song you have heard from 1986?Yikes…
Okay, this depends a great deal on whatever day of the week it was:
Missionary Man – The Eurythmics
Walk like an Egyptian – The Bangles
In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
And… anything by R.E.M.

LS: Greatest 1970’s Movie
It’s a straight tossup between two heavy-hitters:
Alien vs. Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

LS: Families, a blessing or a curse?
Double-header package. Both, and there is no way to separate the two.

LS: Sugar or salt?
Salt. If I’m on the desert island, I need salty snacks more than sweet.

LS: Most overrated writer ever?
There are some tempting bandwagons on which to leap. Do I pick David Foster Wallace? He seems to be a popular target. Granted, Infinite Jest is a very long novel, but calling Wallace overrated just because one cannot stick with the book to the end seems a bit harsh. It also says something about a certain group of readers. If we use the ‘too long’ brush, we have to damn Proust, Joyce, and most certainly that bastard Roberto Bolaño. Nope, I can’t go there. I love each of these dead scribblers. Stephen King? No, he works damn hard. If you don’t like him, don’t read him. David Eggers? Chuck Palaniuk? Tough luck for you, Boomers. These boys ain’t writing for your generation.
Suck it up. That Fifty-Shades chick? Not worth mentioning, much less rating. She got lucky. Good for her! Ditto J.K. Rowling. Good on you! Enjoy the dough.
No, I’ve carried a life-long grudge against one writer, and only one writer: George Eliot. I had to read that abysmal novel Silas Marner whilst in high school. Talk about a grand scheme to ensure that a student never cracks another novel in their lifetime! Less well-known as Mary Ann Evans, she was a thorn in my sophomore side, an evil and banal throwback to provincial England. Are you kidding me? Why anyone would attempt to saddle an acne-plagued sex-riddled adolescent with this drivel is a conundrum I have yet to solve. A pox on George Eliot and any that would hold him/her/them up as an example of proper writing. Pah! Says I.

LS: Would the slaughter of the British royal family generate more or less income?Naturally a lot less income for the royals. But let’s consider this, shall we?
If the people rise up and slaughter the rich fools, in the style of the French Revolution, there would certainly be a lot of new properties available for the common folk. Think of Balmoral turned into a nature reserve and meditation center. If, on the other hand, the Tories turned on the Royals and whacked off their heads, that would only consolidate more ill-gotten lucre in the hands of the ill-conceived and ill-begotten. It really boils down to who is doing the slaughtering. The one tip I have for the slaughterers, whomever they might be. Make sure to get your hands on Charles’ ears. Those flapping bad boys will fetch a tidy sum on the dark web.

Marco Etheridge